5 Ways to Utilize Social Media in Hospitality
Your vacation rental’s guest experience determines whether or not your place is worth staying at, but how can guests get a taste of your guest experience before they even book their trip?
By you communicating with them on social media.
Utilizing social media in hospitality can help you secure bookings because it’s an effective way to communicate with guests. Statistics from a survey mentioned in Why ignoring social media could prove fatal for hotel GMs from Travel Daily show guests expect their hosts to communicate with them on social media:
● 40 percent of survey participants expect a response within an hour
● 79 percent expect a response in 24 hours
● 47 percent said timely responses can be why they book one hotel over another
Before you can communicate with guests on social media, you have to build your vacation rental’s presence on social media. Modern Innkeeper has five tips on how you can do this and become more accessible to your guests.
Capture the Guest Experience
We said this at the beginning, but we’ll say it again: your vacation rental’s guest experience determines whether or not your place is worth staying at. Posting about the following on social media can show guests your vacation rental is:
● Your services that enhance the guest experience
● The additional amenities you provide
● Restaurants, local shops, etc. you recommend
Posting about your vacation rental’s guest experience can help show guests your vacation rental is their best option.
Tag Locations
Tagging your vacation rental’s location in your posts can tell your guests more about your vacation rental’s locality. That’s because they can click directly on the tagged location. An example of hosts doing this is the owners of an award-winning vacation rental in Alexandria, Virginia tagging “Historic Old Town Alexandria VA” in their Instagram posts.
If you have a name for your vacation rental, include that too! If you don’t, maybe you can come up with one as you continue building your brand.
Stick to Your Brand’s Identity
Speaking of your brand, social media is a wonderful place to promote it!
Posts including what makes your brand appealing can lead to guests booking your vacation rental. Here’s an example:
Imagine your brand revolves around young families who enjoy the outdoors. They book your place because they can ride bikes, sleep outside and enjoy nature. So, your posts need to let other young, outdoorsy families know your vacation rental’s brand embraces these activities! This would include posting about the available outdoor equipment and pictures of the spectacular view from a nearby trail.
Align your brand with your guests, and then post about it!
Ask Guests to Tag You
Whether you know it or not, guests who tag your vacation rental in their posts are providing you social proof, which is, per Wikipedia, “a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.”
For you, social proof is this: a potential guest sees a post from one of your past guests about the wonderful time they had at your vacation rental. The potential guest considers your past guest’s post as proof your vacation rental is a great place to stay, which may lead to them booking a trip.
Hence why sharing this post is so important!
Ask guests who post about their stay to tag you so you can share it on your social media accounts. Doing so makes it easier for future guests to find the social proof they need to know your vacation rental is the place to stay.
Respond to Comments and Messages
The importance of communicating with guests on social media is the reason for this blog. Guests not only want responses on social media, but they expect responses on social media.
And with nearly five billion combined users on Facebook and Instagram, responding on social media can be a great way to keep your vacation rental’s calendar full.